Childeen stood on his table as he spoke to Peshareen and Commander Bach, the two leaders in charge of the mission to get the cure for the Quall. "Fuck you Childeen, this is bullshit I ain't doing it!" Commander Bach said.

"I agree with him boss, its one thing to sell a few guns, its another to save a Queen from the gallows." Peshareen concurred.

Childeen paced and wondered if he was really the only one that saw it. "Why have we dealt with the Quall?" He asked quietly.

"I was wondering that myself." The still enraged Bach noted.

Pesh just looked to his boss quizzically, "I had figured like everyone else it was about the money."

Childeen shook his head, and grunted in exasperation. "Hell no it was never about the money, if it were I would have gone to the Unity and gotten whatever they were selling bottom dollar and resell it in the Iron Republic. If all I cared about was the money I would have just become a banking guild merchant and sold EEF ships long before Maehl even considered it." He paused, his voice dropping in tone, "It wasn't the money, when Ara'ya and Le-a were playing their soft power feel good handjob games I supported it because they were the most benign hive queens the universe had ever known. Then when she went rogue I supported her because it made the rest of the hive queens leery of supporting the IR militarily.

Childeen shook his head, "Now I want to support Le-a because we may wake the sleeping dragon."

Commander Bach shook his head, "That's bullshit, you are telling me Le-a needs to live so what we the Quall don't go to war with us?"

Childeen nodded, "Yes, look at it, Andara, a moderate hive queen of high repute, killed by biowarfare. Ara-ya is on the verge of being martyr'd, and she will be a martyr the way things look. She will die at the hands of the TRILAT and the temporal empire and the hive queens will revere her for it. And now Le-a is set to be executed, not by the hive queen council but by the board of directors."

Childeen let a out a breath, "Three hive queens in three weeks, how long until the Quall start questioning the value of this dimension? How long until they decide it is more trouble than its worth to keep around as a people farm?"

Both his commanders looked at him thinking about the implications of it, Pesh spoke up, "The children of the falosini have been prepping for this war for millenia, the unity has plenty of tricks to kill off the quall. Thats not a war that the Quall can win."

Childeen shook his head, "And its not one we will either, the Quall march on us, this fleets of fate thing everyone is whispering about moves against us, the Estrain decide to stop taking it on the chin and strike back. Sure the combined forces of the IR, Bilat, and EEF may hold them and inflict heavy punishment, but at what cost? How many billions die? In the end it all feeds warmonger."

A shudder runs through Childeen involuntarily as he remembered his encounter with the fiend in the hell dimensions, "...and if that war of all sides occurs this dimension is his for the taking. I'm not saying you have to like the deal we have been handed, its shit, but in this galaxy that's all we get to work with."